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Nickelodeon Interactive Games
Nickelodeon Interactive Games (initially Nickelodeon Computer Software and later in early 2000's Nick Games) is an American video game company. It self-publishes and distributes multi-platform video games and to the interactive entertainment worldwide. Nickelodeon Interactive Games is a subsidiary of Viacom New Media; thus a part of Viacom Media Networks media conglomerate Most of the games released by THQ were typically tie-in products to existing character of the Nickelodeon franchises but until April 2013, The Nickelodeon videogame license was acquired by Activision leaving their nickelodeon mascot Mitchell Van Morgan at the hands of THQ's parent company Nordic Games and Nickelodeon's British/Irish TV channel Nickelodeon UK and the THQ trademark product revival on August 16, 2016. On May 10, 2016, as a result of the continuation of its Nickelodeon gaming franchise, Viacom announced that it was shutting down Nickelodeon Interactive Games and effectively exiting from distributing its own games in order to focus on third-party development of video game adaptations of its franchises by other developers such as 2K Play.2 However, it will continue to release games for iOS and Android mobile devices under its own label Nickelodeon Mobile. Background Initially Nickelodeon licensed its characters in the early 1990s for the games: Mitchell Van Morgan for Game Boy Color, Nickelodeon Guts for SNES, or Nickelodeon 3D-Movie Maker for personal computers. History Nickelodeon Computer software In 1994, Nickelodeon started its own in house gaming unit, Nickelodeon Computer Software (NCS). NCS generally used as third-party development studios for Viacom New Media and THQ to design spin-off games using its existing portfolio of characters. NCS had little success attributed by senior Viacom executives due to low product quality and lack of understanding the differences between film, tv show and games. The few market successes were third party published games based on major Nickelodeon animated series like Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, Rocko's Modern Life and Ren & Stimpy with one videogame based on the Nickelodeon game show like Nickelodeon Guts in 1994. This led to a move from self-developed and self-published to funding and development management of games with third parties published the game. Using the film studio style formula, NCS was reorganized into Nickelodeon Interactive (NI) on December 5, 1994 with the merging of NCS and Viacom Television and Telecommunications division. On April 15, 1997, Viacom New Media reduced its staff by 20% ending in-house video game production. source: CNet News.com, http://www.news.cnet.com. This increased the requests for licensing from third-party games companies. Under this plan, development and production cost risks were transferred to the game companies but reduced the per-unit revenue generated to Nickelodeon and effectively yielded a near 100 percent margin of licensed game sales. Nick Games (2003-2009) Nick Games (Nickelodeon Games) was spun out of Nickelodeon Interactive in 2003 after a 2002 strategic review that chose to return to being a dedicated videogames distribution of Viacom. With Nick Games focused on children's games, Nickelodeon Games took on all other content game including mobile and online mediums. Nick Games is probably best known for the Avatar: The Last Airbender series with THQ Studios Austraila And Paper Mitchell series along with American publisher THQ and the Japanese developer Square Enix. In April 2005, BVG purchased Avalanche Software in Salt Lake City, Utah and started a Vancouver, British Columbia based game development studio, Propaganda Games. In September 2006, Buena Vista acquired Climax Racing. BVG formed a new game studio, Fall Line Studio, in November 2006 to create Disney and new game titles for Nintendo DS and the Wii console. In the beginning of 2007, Nick Games was used for THQ's family-oriented videogame publisher and developer called Play THQ. The label was primarily used to publish Nickelodeon licensed game titles like Mitchell Van Morgan, Avatar: The Last Airbender, SpongeBob SquarePants, ''Tak'' Series, Nicktoons and much more. Nickelodeon Interactive Games (2009-2013) In 2009, The Viacom Company renamed Nick Games to Nickelodeon Interactive Games. The studio publishes both Nickelodeon and non-Nickelodeon branded video games for all platforms worldwide, with titles that feature its consumer brands including Viacom, CBS, MTV, and Paramount Pictures (which is used as a label for Viacom). In July 2007, the studio acquired Viacom New Media. On June 5, 2008, Disney Interactive Studios and the Walt Disney Internet Group, merged into a single business unit now known as the Disney Interactive Media Group,"Disney's games and internet divisions merging", Joystiq.com, 2008. and it merged its subsidiary Fall Line Studios with its sister studio, Avalanche Software, in January 2009. In February 2009, Disney Interactive acquired GameStar, a Chinese game development company. On September 8, 2009, Disney Interactive announced that it had acquired Wideload Games. On November 15, 2011, Victorious: Time to Shine for Kinect and Hollywood Arts Debut for Nintendo DS were released. On November 13, 2012, Victorious: Taking the Lead for Wii and Nintendo DS was released. DIS in October 2012 announced "Toy Box", a cross platform gaming initiative where Pixar and Disney characters will interact from a console game to multiple mobile and online applications. The first Toy Box cross platform game is Disney Infinity based on the Toy Story 3 game's Toy Box mode crossed with a toy line. After the purchase of Lucasfilm by The Walt Disney Company in 2012, Disney Interactive assumed the role of developing Star Wars games for the casual gaming market, while Electronic Arts would develop Star Wars games for the core gaming market through an exclusive license (although LucasArts did retain the ability to license Star Wars games to other developers for the casual gaming market). At E3 2013, Disney and Square Enix released a teaser trailer for Kingdom Hearts III, after going seven years of not declaring any console Kingdom Hearts game since Kingdom Hearts II. Disney Interactive Studios has lost more than $200 million per year from 2008-2012 during a period in which it shut down Propaganda Games,"Propaganda Games Shuttered" from Joystiq.com Black Rock Studio"Split Second Dev Black Rock To Close" from EuroGamer and Junction Point Studios and its co-president John Pleasants stepped down in November 2013 after the launch of Disney Infinity. On March 6, 2014, 700 employees were laid off. Nickelodeon Interactive Games sold to Activision as Mitchell Van Morgan Videogames are sold to Nordic Games (2013-present) in April 2013, The Nickelodeon videogame license was acquired by Activision, except for Mitchell Van Morgan's. Mitchell Van Morgan is the only Nickelodeon videogame license was acquired by THQ's parent company Nordic Games because of Nickelodeon Interactive Games' careless act to their main flagship franchise. List of games The company also publishes games from Q Entertainment worldwide except Asia: Lumines II, the sequel to the puzzle game for the PSP system; Lumines Plus, a new version of Lumines for the PlayStation 2; Every Extend Extra, a puzzle shooter; and a Disney Interactive Studios's Meteos: Disney Edition, the popular Meteos game for the Nintendo DS with Disney characters. The company revealed a lineup of games at E3 2006, which include DIE's Turok, a re-imagining of the video game series of the same name and Desperate Housewives: The Game, based on the hit television show. Disney Interactive Studios is credited in all entries to the Kingdom Hearts franchise, with the original release box art of each entry to the series having different logos and name of the company seeing as coincidentally, the company is re-branded in between the releases. Notably however the company is not credited to actually developing the game.http://na.square-enix.com/games/kingdomhearts/ -- © Disney. Developed by SQUARE ENIX. Games in development *''Paper Mitchell: Rainbow-Colored'' (TBA) (published by Nordic Games & developed with Square Enix) - Wii U, PlayStation 4, Xbox One *''SpongeBob HeroPants'' (TBA) (published by Activision & developed with Behavior Interactive) - Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360 Divisions *Avalanche Software, based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Acquired April 2005 *Gamestar, based in China. Acquired February 2009 *Rocket Pack *MITCHELL Project, based on MTV Japan. The only Nickelodeon Videogame licensing team for creating the Mitchell Van Morgan trademarks acquired in October 1999 after the debut of the ''Mitchell'' series. *Paramount Digital Entertainment, a division under Paramount Pictures Corporation, develops and distributes movies and video games digitally via various platforms including online, mobile devices, portable devices and the Viacom 90s revival videogames such as the Aaahh!!! Real Monsters videogame to the 2010s videogame based on the Nickelodeon Movie film Rango and the videogame based on The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water film called SpongeBob HeroPants. This Viacom division is also the revival of Viacom's deceased videogame publisher Viacom New Media. Former/defunct *Viacom New Media, Viacom's former videogame publisher which revolutionized the SNES & Sega Genesis era in 1991-1997. *THQ Studios Australia, THQ's Australian studio 2005-2011. *Infogrames, Nickelodeon's former videogame publisher during the 2000s THQ era acquired by and reincorporated as Atari's French subsidiary Atari, SA in 2009 and it is scheduled to reinvent the Atari brand in the 2010s era *Fall Line Studios - 2006-2009, merged into Avalanche *Junction Point Studios, based in Austin, Texas. Acquired July 2007 Shut down in January 2013. *Wideload Games, based in Chicago, Illinois. Acquired September 8, 2009. Shut down March 6, 2014 See also *Covox Speech Thing References External links * Category:Nickelodeon Category:Nickelodeon Interactive Category:Nickelodeon Interactive Games Nickelodeon Interactive Games Category:Video game publishers Category:Video game development companies Category:Companies based in Glendale, California Category:Video game companies established in 1990s Category:Video game companies of the United States Category:Video game companies Category:Entertainment Software Association Category:Viacom subsidiary Category:Viacom subsidiaries Nickelodeon-related production companies